Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItThe longer we live in the new digital world, the more we are seeing it replicate systemic issues we’ve been fighting for decades. In the case of movie studios, what we’ve seen in the last few years in streaming mirrors what happened in the 1930s and ‘40s, when a small group of movie studios also controlled the theaters that showed their films. And by 1948, the actions of the studios were deemed violations of antitrust law, resulting in a consent decree. The Justice Department ended that decree in 2019 that the...…Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItThe longer we live in the new digital world, the more we are seeing it replicate systemic issues we’ve been fighting for decades. In the case of movie studios, what we’ve seen in the last few years in streaming mirrors what happened in the 1930s and ‘40s, when a small group of movie studios also controlled the theaters that showed their films. And by 1948, the actions of the studios were deemed violations of antitrust law, resulting in a consent decree. The Justice Department ended that decree in 2019 that the...WW…

Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItWhen it launched HBO Max, it that usage of the service would not count against the data caps of AT&T customers, a practice known as “zero-rating.” This means that people on limited data plans could watch as much HBO Max content as they wished without incurring overage fees. AT&T just declared that it would stop this practice, citing California’s net neutrality law as a reason. No matter what spin the telecom giant offers, this does not mean something “free” was taken away. That deal was never free to...…Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItWhen it launched HBO Max, it that usage of the service would not count against the data caps of AT&T customers, a practice known as “zero-rating.” This means that people on limited data plans could watch as much HBO Max content as they wished without incurring overage fees. AT&T just declared that it would stop this practice, citing California’s net neutrality law as a reason. No matter what spin the telecom giant offers, this does not mean something “free” was taken away. That deal was never free to...WW…

Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItSomething is rotten online. Facebook and Google dominate the market on online advertising, depleting the resources needed by any other company reliant on serving digital content. For news media, the confluence of an increasingly digital world with Google and Facebook’s siphoning of online advertising revenue has been catastrophic. Unfortunately, giving news media an antitrust exemption to bargain as a group with Facebook and Google will not be the time machine that brings news media back to where it was.Last week,...…Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItSomething is rotten online. Facebook and Google dominate the market on online advertising, depleting the resources needed by any other company reliant on serving digital content. For news media, the confluence of an increasingly digital world with Google and Facebook’s siphoning of online advertising revenue has been catastrophic. Unfortunately, giving news media an antitrust exemption to bargain as a group with Facebook and Google will not be the time machine that brings news media back to where it was.Last week,...WW…

Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItLast week was the deadline for comments on the draft of the so-called “Digital Copyright Act,” a proposal which would fundamentally change how creativity functions online. We asked for creators to add their voices to the many groups opposing this draft, and you did it. Ultimately, over 900 of you signed a letter expressing your concern.The “Digital Copyright Act” was the result of a year of hearings in the U.S. Senate’s Subcommittee on Intellectual Property. Many of the hearings dismissed or marginalized the voices...…Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItLast week was the deadline for comments on the draft of the so-called “Digital Copyright Act,” a proposal which would fundamentally change how creativity functions online. We asked for creators to add their voices to the many groups opposing this draft, and you did it. Ultimately, over 900 of you signed a letter expressing your concern.The “Digital Copyright Act” was the result of a year of hearings in the U.S. Senate’s Subcommittee on Intellectual Property. Many of the hearings dismissed or marginalized the voices...WW…

Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItThis event has ended. If you make and share things online, professionally or for fun, you’ve been affected by copyright law. You may use a service that depends on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in order to survive. You may have gotten a DMCA notice if you used part of a movie, TV show, or song in your work. You have almost certainly run up against the weird and draconian world of copyright filters like YouTube’s Content ID. EFF wants to help.The end of last year was a flurry of copyright news,...…Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItThis event has ended. If you make and share things online, professionally or for fun, you’ve been affected by copyright law. You may use a service that depends on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in order to survive. You may have gotten a DMCA notice if you used part of a movie, TV show, or song in your work. You have almost certainly run up against the weird and draconian world of copyright filters like YouTube’s Content ID. EFF wants to help.The end of last year was a flurry of copyright news,...WW…

Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItSomeone tries to livestream their encounters with the police, only to find that the police started playing music. In the case of a between an activist and the Beverly Hills Police Department, the song of choice was Sublime’s “Santeria.” The police may not got no crystal ball, but they do seem to have an unusually strong knowledge about copyright filters.The timing of music being played when a cop saw he was being filmed was not lost on people. It seemed likely that the goal was to trigger Instagram’s over-zealous...…Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItSomeone tries to livestream their encounters with the police, only to find that the police started playing music. In the case of a between an activist and the Beverly Hills Police Department, the song of choice was Sublime’s “Santeria.” The police may not got no crystal ball, but they do seem to have an unusually strong knowledge about copyright filters.The timing of music being played when a cop saw he was being filmed was not lost on people. It seemed likely that the goal was to trigger Instagram’s over-zealous...WW…

Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItIn all the madness that made up the last month of 2020, a number of copyright bills and proposals popped up—some even became law before most people had any chance to review them. So now that the dust has settled a little and we have some better idea what the landscape is going to look like, it is time to answer a few frequently asked questions.In December 2020, Congress was rushing to pass a massive spending bill and coronavirus relief package. This was “must-pass” legislation, in the sense that if it didn’t pass...…Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItIn all the madness that made up the last month of 2020, a number of copyright bills and proposals popped up—some even became law before most people had any chance to review them. So now that the dust has settled a little and we have some better idea what the landscape is going to look like, it is time to answer a few frequently asked questions.In December 2020, Congress was rushing to pass a massive spending bill and coronavirus relief package. This was “must-pass” legislation, in the sense that if it didn’t pass...WW…

Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItAs we continue to hear calls to repeal or change Section 230, it appears that many people have conflated a law that affects the tech giants (among many others) with Big Tech as a whole. Section 230 is not a gift to Big Tech, nor is repealing it a panacea for the problems Big Tech is causing—to the contrary repealing it will only exacerbate those problems. The thing you hate is not 230. It’s lack of competition.Section 230 stands for the simple principle that the party responsible for unlawful speech online is the...…Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItAs we continue to hear calls to repeal or change Section 230, it appears that many people have conflated a law that affects the tech giants (among many others) with Big Tech as a whole. Section 230 is not a gift to Big Tech, nor is repealing it a panacea for the problems Big Tech is causing—to the contrary repealing it will only exacerbate those problems. The thing you hate is not 230. It’s lack of competition.Section 230 stands for the simple principle that the party responsible for unlawful speech online is the...WW…

Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItJust yesterday we saw two wretched copyright bills-the and a slipped into law via a must-pass spending bill. But it seems some people in Congress were just getting started. Today, Senator Thom Tillis launched a "discussion draft" of the But there's nothing to discuss: the bill, if passed, would absolutely devastate the Internet.We’ll have a more in-depth analysis of this draft bill later, but we want to be clear about our opposition from the start: this bill is bad for Internet users, creators, and start-ups. The...…Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItJust yesterday we saw two wretched copyright bills-the and a slipped into law via a must-pass spending bill. But it seems some people in Congress were just getting started. Today, Senator Thom Tillis launched a "discussion draft" of the But there's nothing to discuss: the bill, if passed, would absolutely devastate the Internet.We’ll have a more in-depth analysis of this draft bill later, but we want to be clear about our opposition from the start: this bill is bad for Internet users, creators, and start-ups. The...WW…

Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItEven before it announced that it would seek Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Frontier had a well-deserved reputation for mismanagement and abusive conduct. In an industry that routinely enrages its customers, Frontier was the , an and of the industry's and . As Frontier’s bankruptcy has shown, there was no good reason they—and all old big Internet service providers—couldn’t provide blazing-fast fiber on par with services in South Korea and Japan.Frontier's bankruptcy announcement forced the company to its finances, past...…Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItEven before it announced that it would seek Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Frontier had a well-deserved reputation for mismanagement and abusive conduct. In an industry that routinely enrages its customers, Frontier was the , an and of the industry's and . As Frontier’s bankruptcy has shown, there was no good reason they—and all old big Internet service providers—couldn’t provide blazing-fast fiber on par with services in South Korea and Japan.Frontier's bankruptcy announcement forced the company to its finances, past...WW…